GALVESTON, Texas – One of Galveston’s most famous festivals is headed to GISD schools. Players from the Dickens on the Strand Festival will give a presentation on Friday, December 3 at Parker Elementary (8:30 a.m.) and Weis Middle School (2:00 p.m.) in advance of celebrations of the 37th annual event that takes place over the weekend, Dec. 4-5. The Dickens group will give a presentation on the Victorian era as well as a reading.

Galveston’s Dickens on The Strand, an annual holiday street festival filled with costumes, music, food and wares based on 19th-century Victorian London, will feature a wide array of new events in 2010—including Airship Isabella, an alternative Victorian “Steampunk” group of performers who will host an edgy bazaar, circus and street ball.

The Dickens entourage includes Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, ancestor of Charles Dickens. It also includes actors playing Queen Victoria, her Lady in Waiting, a Queen’s Escort, and a Town Crier. All members are heavily involved with events at the festival.

Hawksley is an author and the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens, descended from his son Sir Henry Fielding Dickens (the eighth child in the family). She is an expert on Dickens family life and a patron of the Charles Dickens Museum in London. To learn more about Hawksley and her literary works, visit her website at www.lucindahawksley.com.

GISD organizations will also take part in the Dickens festivities. On Saturday Dec. 4, Galveston Early College choir and band members perform at the ECT theatre (2317 Mechanic, across from Tremonte Hotel) at 12 noon. On Sunday, Dec. 5, the Ball High and Austin bands perform in the Queen’s Parade at 2 p.m.